#ENDSARS: WHO SPEAKS FOR THE POLICE? (II)

As stated last week, long before #ENDSARS, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau last year addressed a SIX-POINT AGENDA FOR NIGERIAN POLICING (Recruitment; Training; Equipment; Welfare; Pension; and Funding) to the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Security and Intelligence. This Column carried Part 1 last week (on Recruitment, or Numbers, and Training). This week we conclude with the other four – Training, Welfare, Pension and Funding:

EQUIPMENT: Today, intelligence-gathering equipment – drones, tracking devices, CCTVs plus functioning toll-free numbers etc – is the international best practice in policing. Whatever the level of funding, staffing or training, without adequate and relevant equipment, the police cannot function effectively. In a situation where security agencies are apparently outgunned by criminals, the police (who have the legitimate mandate to handle firearms) need to be well-equipped, well-resourced and well provided-for to international standards in terms of the tools of their trade.

As a governor of my state for eight years, I have witnessed the dire need by the police for firearms, vehicles, shields, uniforms, boots, bulletproof vests, forensic laboratories, etc. Each one of us here who has had the privilege of working at the state level knows how much every state government expends regularly to assist the police in obtaining adequate equipment.

A state Mobile Police Commander once complained to me about the lack of a single functioning truck to take his men out on operation; their only truck had ‘knocked’, and had been ‘immobilised’ for a whole year. They therefore, sadly, had to borrow or even hire vehicles for operations. I hope the irony is not lost on my colleagues – these are ‘Mobile’ Police, who are supposed to be ‘mobile’, but are immobile and can cannot therefore mobilise to where needed. And whenever the MOPOL are deployed, it is a situation of urgency and seriousness.

WELFARE: Back in 2007 when I was governor, so-called Taliban (the precursors of the present Boko Haram), invaded Kano and attacked Panshekara, a suburb of the Metropolis, where they killed a truckload of policemen. Almost thirteen years later, many of the families of those fallen heroes have not been paid the official compensation for losing their breadwinners in the line of duty. This is not situation which will encourage young and brilliant Nigerians to want to take up policing as a career.

I remember an individual officer who works with me confiding in me that since his promotion more than ten years ago, not a single Kobo has been paid to him to signify that he was indeed promoted. And there is no gainsaying the fact that the financial reward of a promotion should go hand in hand with any new insignia.

Therefore, for the morale of the police to be sustained, and for them to do as the Hausa say ‘A Sai Da Rai A Samo Suna’ (literally ‘Sacrifice and Make a Name’), and work selflessly and sacrifice patriotically, the country must look at improving police welfare. The condition of their barracks, their health facilities, their children’s schools, their water supply, their electricity – everything has to be addressed.

Welfare is not about payment of salaries and allowances. Welfare is the ingredient that will ensure a policeman is happy to go to work knowing that his children are attend a functional school, his pregnant wife is well taken care of at the police clinic, and his fridge and freezer have electricity to run and sustain his wife’s Zobo business.

PENSION: When people retire, the first thing they look up to to sustain their lives is their pension. The history of police pension scandals is too well known and better left unsaid. Perhaps after welfare, the next best thing to do to get the best out of workers is to ensure their pensions are adequate, timely and sustainable.

The situation today is that there is no morale among the police, from rank and file to the officer cadre, when it comes to pensions. Many retired police officers used to tragically collapse and die on so-called pension queues. Retired police officers (admittedly they are not alone) now roam about offices looking for charity. Everyone here knows the wretched state of retired police personnel; if not in reality, then on media.

With the coming of biometrics, the issue of ghost pensioners (which was ab initio a creation of corrupt bureaucracy) should now be behind us and the authorities must ensure a robust pension regime for retiring police. This will be a massive morale booster for an officer to know that, after retiring his or he pension will come without struggle. This will further attract highly educated and intelligent young people to enlist. One retired IGP once told me that he would not himself allow his own son to join the police, as Nigeria has only got the police it paid for!

FUNDING: Adequate funding is key to all these suggestions. Recently, the current IGP stated that his service needs almost a Trillion Naira to ensure Nigeria is well and adequately policed. In a situation of life and death, which is sadly our situation today, we must as a people see to it that our security is paramount and no amount of money is too much to secure us and our families.

We must all recall that since the police service was decentralised (by the creation of such services as the NSO/DSS, FRSC, NSCDC, EFCC/ICPC, etc which were hitherto all functions of the police), police funding has taken a nosedive. All the funding that is supposed to go to the police now goes to these and many other similarly carved-out quasi-police establishments. Some of them are so well funded that our young people are so keen to join them – but not the real police. Yet the nation is no better in its security and crime-fighting.

What is the use of duplicating police establishment of DSS operatives who are supposedly detectives who should really be undercover but now wear garments boldly bearing DSS and brandishing guns? What is undercover about that, since their cover has been blown by themselves? Another example – the EFCC detains people in guest houses while police cells are smelly, ramshackle, damp, uninhabitable places which are worse than prisons. That is why the hope of any suspect is to be quickly taken to court so that he can be remanded in prison rather than spend an additional minute in a police cell.

We must therefore ensure the police do not ask complainants to buy foolscap to write statements thereon, or for transport money to go and invite suspects. We must ensure MOPOL does not need to hire a vehicle to go out on operations. It is my hope, if we facilitate the items on this agenda, we shall have a new Police Service and a new vista in the security of this country in sha Allah.

So help us God!